Rivers and Roads
by Lolajay
Summary: By the time Shadow's motorcycle broke down, he had no idea where he was.


Disclaimer: Shadow belongs to Neil Gaiman. Title is credited to the song of the same name by The Head and the Heart.

Rivers and Roads

By the time Shadow's motorcycle broke down, he had no idea where he was. The sun was near its end making the the swaying field of grain and the long dirt road by which it sat glow a burnished gold. The bike was making a clinking noise that Shadow found rather suspicious. He dismounted and glanced about him with a frown.

Nothing and more nothing for miles.

Straining his eyes he suspecting he could just make out a farm house on the horizon. From that distance it looked like and angry fire ant shimmering in the heat. Shadow sighed and lightly tapped the rear tire of the bike with his boot. He grabbed his bag, taking from it a bottle of water, and sat down on a slight dirt bank. Taking a swig he grimaced at the luke warm temperature.

He thought that if he had been asked what had possessed him to buy some crap motorcycle he wouldn't even be able to say. He had been traveling for so long, seeing so much, that he wanted to keep going by any means possible. He realized that may have been a mistake in this case, considering his means had been a bike that had to be more than a couple decades old.

Still, he felt relatively good. Ever since ending his vigil for Wednesday, he had felt this low level hum of peace within himself, that while not quite happiness, was enough.

"You okay there, boy?" The voice was roughshod like gravel being crunched together. Shadow had not seen the man pull up beside him. He stood up slowly, slapping away the dirt from his jeans, and walked across the asphalt that emanated a heat that he could feel through his boots.

"Yes Sir. Just my bike having issues."

The man, who must have been in his late 50s, squinted past Shadow to the disconsolate hunk of metal. After a moment he grinned.

"Well I know a thing or two about those. Why don't you put 'er in the back, and we'll get you fixed up. House is only a few miles from here."

Shadow studied the stranger. While he suspected the man was not like many he had come across, he was very much like a rare few he had known. God. Shadow smiled internally.

"Sure, thanks."

Bumping along the road in the pickup, Shadow asked "So what do you do, Mister...?"

"Oh, I go by Gearalt Frantz, but my boy you can just call me Mr. Frantz. And to answer your question, I watch the fields. Amongst other things." He gave a hearty chuckle that sounded like a flame abruptly going out. It made Shadow want to laugh in return.

"I'm Shadow, by the way." Mr. Frantz gave him a quick glance and a lopsided grin.

"I had a feeling that might be the case."

When they reached Mr. Frantz's home the light coming from the windows shown out stark against the coming night. A woman was in the kitchen cooking something that made Shadow's stomach growl in longing. Mr. Frantz introduced the woman as his wife, "a true goddess" he said with some pride. Mrs. Frantz or Forrest as she told him to call her, demanded Shadow sit and share a meal. The food was unfamiliar but filled him up, leaving him sated.

Afterwards, Mr. Frantz announced, "Well lets go see what the sorry state of your transportation is, eh." They walked Shadow's motorcycle toward a barn that held all manner of tools. The older man examined and deduced the problem quickly.

"How did you learn about this stuff?" Shadow asked curiously.

"Well," Mr. Frantz drawled out as he loosened some part of the guts of the bike that frankly mystified Shadow, "I used to be able to work a mean healing on all kinds of traveling beasts but, times change and so you must change with them. Now I fix an occasional car or what have you. Its not as interesting, theirs no soul involved like their is with animals to make it challenging. It's a living though, keeps me going. So I suppose that's what counts."

Shadow nodded as he explored the barn with his eyes. He spotted a great scythe hanging on one of the walls, its form partially obscured within the shadows of the barn. Shadow stared at it for a time before he noticed the silence. Returning his focus to Mr. Frantz, he could see that he too was studying the object that had held the younger man's attention. Shadow recognized the subtle look of loss on the man's face. The grief for a life that was so far gone, so buried under the mountains of time, as to be almost nonexistent. He could see doubt there, that maybe that life would have been better off unlived, for all the pain that its decay had caused him and the inevitable void it had left.

Shadow felt his face soften, "Tell me."

And so, as Mr. Frantz worked he told him. He spoke of the wide and open fields of his home, of how during the harvest the people would leave one patch of grain uncut just for him. They would collect it last and afterwards the women would spread breadcrumbs over the tended land in thanks, in the hopes for the same prosperity to be granted to them again the next season. He described how the people would walk back to their homes in the twilight beating their scythes fiercely against the trodden earth shouting his name, their breathes becoming visible in the air with their fervent exhalations.

"I will never have that again," Mr. Frantz finished in a strangled voice not meeting the younger man's gaze. Shadow knew what he meant, that he would never again feel by proxy that kind of free, joyful frenzied passion. That he would forever morn its absence. Shadow briefly touched the man's shoulder. For the rest of the night the motorcycle was fixed in the comfortable silence that comes of mutual understanding.

The next morning, Mr. Frantz made him a strong cup of caffeine and along with Forrest, they chatted for a spell on the sun warmed porch. Not before too long they sent Shadow on his way. He didn't quite know yet where his destination was, but maybe that was part of the point. After saying his thank you's he trotted down the warped steps of the porch; Mr. Frantz called out to him.

"Shadow, things may not be how they were, but they have changed. For the better I think. I feel we may have you to thank for that."

He gave Shadow that lopsided grin of his that was somehow also soberly earnest. Shadow did not believe he had done anything extraordinary, he did not think that his time on the tree and his stopping of the battle was anything more than what was expected of him. He said "Your welcome" anyways.

As he walked toward his bike he could feel his coins jingling in his pockets. He pulled one out at random and tossed it. Shading his eyes from the midday sun he took a deep satisfying breath.

"West it is then."


End file.
